Sources that journalists consult reflect the knowledge and experience of their creators. Evaluating sources for inclusion in a story depends on the type of story being told and the context in which the sources will be used. Authority is constructed given that people, including journalists, and communities recognize and rely on different types of expertise and judgment. Authority is contextual in that the type of story a journalist tells or the type of information they need to inform themselves on a topic will determine the expertise, insights, and/or judgments they seek.
Journalists evaluate sources for accuracy, transparency, reliability, and relevance to a story. Novices are beginning to understand that relevant sources are important for telling a story, and that there are multiple ways to assess the veracity and usefulness of their sources. Experts view authority with informed skepticism and recognize their responsibility to consider the opportunities and constraints of the information sources they consult. These include the biases and privileges inherent in the people, organizations, archives, databases, and documents that journalists use. Novices understand the need to corroborate sources wherever possible, but may struggle to ask relevant questions about the origins, context, and suitability of their sources, and to consider a range of positions on a topic. Experts identify and address competing insights or observations in their sources, and hold themselves and their sources accountable for the information they glean and share. Experts cultivate habits of lateral reading that result in source evaluation that extends analysis of any one source into coverage of the same topics by other authors and sources. Both novices and experts turn to knowledgeable people where appropriate, to help them distinguish which sources are authoritative or not (e.g., community leaders, scholars). However, novices may demonstrate an overreliance on sources recommended to them by professors, coworkers, and peers. Experts recognize their own viewpoints and backgrounds and how these may influence their evaluation of sources and the way they tell a story. Experts understand that expanded access to digital communications and publishing technologies also disrupt authority in journalism. Those global technologies enhance opportunities for expert-level news gathering and reporting, but also enable contested claims over how authority as a journalist is defined.
Journalists who are developing their information literate abilities
Journalists who are developing their information literate abilities